


The Littlest Holmeses

by a_xmasmurder



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angelo's, Asexual Sherlock, Babysitting, Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Gen, Implied Sherlock/John - Freeform, Kid Fic, Kids, Prompt Fic, Relationship Talk, Talk about Sexuality, mystrade, whisky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_xmasmurder/pseuds/a_xmasmurder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is babysitting Mycroft's biological and Greg's adopted children, and meets Sally Donovan in Angelo's while looking for a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Littlest Holmeses

**Author's Note:**

> This was something pulled off of a prompt generator: Sherlock, Sally Donovan, Angelo's, Kidfic, Whisky. 
> 
> This is what I got out of it. It isn't actually crack. I did my best with it, and once again I made Sally a rather nice person because I love her, actually.
> 
>  
> 
> Tell me what you all think about it, and I might - MIGHT - do more like this. This was actually more fun than I thought to write, and I love any opportunity to write Nice!Sally.

Sherlock pushed open the door to Angelo’s with his hip, maneuvering the diaper bag through the small opening and nearly getting tripped by the two small children with him, who pushed past him and into the restaurant. The infant in the sling against his chest gurgled and babbled happily at him, and he couldn’t help but smile down at the little girl.

“Tierney, Marcus, stay out of the kitchen, please! There is nothing in there that will entertain your attention for more that a couple minutes, and most of it will kill you. Well. Equipment-wise.” He managed to catch Angelo’s attention, gesturing towards his little niece and nephew as they snuck back under the swinging door leading to the back. “Angelo, grab them and give them something sweet. I’ve had a rough day and I’m going to give them back to Mycroft and Greg with so much sugar in them that they won’t come down from the high for a week.”

The jolly man laughed and picked both five year olds up by the waists, laughing even louder at their angry little protests. “Hush now, little Holmeses. If you can behave for Uncle Sherlock and Uncle Angelo, I have a big chocolate cake with your names on it...”

That halted the little ones’ loud yells and suddenly they were perfect angels.

Sherlock sighed and slumped down into the first empty chair he passed. “Typical young children.” He dropped his head back. “Thank the stars that John will be coming back from his conference tomorrow, and Mycroft is coming back from Japan tonight.” The littlest one reached up and grabbed one of his shirt buttons and cooed. “Yes. That is a whalebone button, and if you tear it off and eat it, I might have to...oh, I don’t think I could kill you, but hang you upside down by your big toe, definitely. Father is coming back and he’s probably bought you a cutesy little outfit and baubles for the others. Damn him for disappearing at the last moment like this, and with your nanny on leave for her illness...ugh. Stupid North Korea, rattling sabres and making his life a bit wilder than normal, thereby ruining my life as a result...Madalyn, hush now, I’ve got a phone call.” He scratched the infant’s back through the cloth sling and pulled the buzzing phone out of his hip pocket. “Sherlock Holmes, don’t be bor - Yes, Lestrade, hello. No, I didn’t really look at the display, I’m holding one of your children.” A pause. “Yes. Oh, they’re fiiiiine -” An angry screech made him look up from the smallest child, over to the two squabbling twins. “Tierney, share with your brother or I’m turning you into a mold experiment!”

The guests in the restaurant stared at him in shock and mild disgust. He glared right back at them. “Oh, hush, Lestrade. You know better than that. I’d pick a harmless - oh, she’s allergic?” He sighed. “Oh. Nevermind. I’ll just stick her to the ceiling with duct tape, then.” His lip turned up into a half smirk. “She loved it the last time! Yes, yes I did. I’m not kidding.” He laughed a little tiredly. “John had no problem getting her down.” He laughed again at the other man’s reaction, turned to look out the window, and finally realised he was at someone’s table.

“Oh.”

 _Sally Donovan’s_ table.

“Your sergeant’s off tonight, isn’t she?” He smirked even wider at the woman, who sighed in exasperation and waved an urgent hand at the smaller girl next to her, who was asking questions at a rapid pace, something he hadn’t noticed before, damn his distracted state. Damn kids. Sherlock peered at the girl. “I wasn’t aware you had a daughter.” That was directed at Sally.

“I do,” she grumbled.

“Ah. Brilliant. She’s a darling.” He turned his attention back to the phone, leaving Sally to gape at him. “Yes, I’m actually sitting next to her right now. She apparently has taken her child out for dinner. I thought the table was unoccupied, which goes to show the current state of mind that your children have driven me to - Oh, don’t put this all on Mycroft, you are the one who decided dating him and becoming his fiance would be a grand plan. They are now yours by proxy, damn it, and I will blame you for everything they destroy, including my sanity.”

Sally chuckled, and apparently so did Lestrade, because Sherlock made a face at both the phone and her. “I am not completely insane, yet. I will definitely turn Marcus into a fake crime scene now, just to spite you. You will never get the red dye out of his clothes.” Another pause. “Didn’t you say you were going to be off early tonight?” He took a sip of water and nodded. “Oh. The Bartlett case again. Well. Would you like some assistance? I’m sure I can juggle - Marcus Alexander Holmes - Lestrade! If you even for one second think that you are going to stab your sister in the arm with that fork, I will be using you as a human analogue in my next spanking experiment!”

Sally stared at him, aghast and twitching her hands, wanting to throw them over her daughter’s ears, but a part of her wanted to break down into laughter at how he was handling the children. She chose to snarl at him instead. “If you think you are going to discuss -”

Sherlock waved his hand at her distractedly and shook his head, then patted Madalyn on the belly to make the little girl giggle. “No, Lestrade, I don’t mind watching them a little longer. I have a rather important experiment that must be checked exactly at midnight, and I’m not certain when Mycroft is getting back. North Korea, if you must know.” He blinked. “Oh. Well, that may work. Nice of him to call me and tell me.” He reached into the diaper bag and pulled out a pacifier and popped it into his mouth, then handed it to Madie, who shook it and screeched.

The sight made Sally snicker, and she found the part of her brain that hated the hell out of the unbelievable man was slowly thawing, a warm sensation in her chest swelling when he sighed and smiled down at the little girl against his chest.

“No, John isn’t supposed to get back until tomorrow, depending on the weather. It’s supposed to snow up by Devon.” He craned his neck. “Tierney. Marcus. Come talk to Papa, he’s stumped on a case and bored out of his brain. Tell him about your homework, and the toads we found in Missus Hudson’s garden today.”

The twins ran up to Sherlock, and with murmured “Thank you Uncle Sherlock”s they took the phone with grubby fingers and started jabbering at the same time. Sherlock smiled warmly, a face Sally wasn’t even sure the man could make. He flicked his fingers at them. “Go over to the cake, now. Tell him how delectable it is, make him jealous. Go on, now.” He flicked his fingers again, and the children took off. With a sigh and one of his patented ‘I really don’t give a flying blue fuck what you people think about me, leave me alone’ stares at the guests around them, he turned to Sally - no, to her daughter. “Hello.”

The girl stared at him. “Hello.” She blinked her wide brown eyes at him.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes.” His voice was bright, despite his apparent exhaustion. “Who are you?”

“Lizzy.”

Sally was utterly amazed that Sherlock was talking directly to her daughter, and not in a condescending tone of voice, either. No, if anything, he sounded normal. Like a normal man. It was a miracle. She watched him bend forward and shake Elisabeth’s hand, and relax into the chair with a sigh. Finally, he turned to her. “Hello, Sally.”

“Hi.” He even sounded civil to her. She decided to at least try to do the same. ”What are you doing here?”

“Getting supper.” He scrunched up his nose in irritation. “John told me I have to eat once a day, to make a good impression on the children. So here I am.” He looked up as a salad was placed in front of him, and Madie immediately dropped the pacifier and made a grab for the bits of lettuce hanging off the sides. Sherlock pushed it out of her reach. “Hold it, Madie. Hold on. I don’t think you want this, it’s got things on it that I’m sure you can’t have yet, and I don’t want to find out the hard way.” He pulled out a small bottle with a pre-made formula mix in it. “This is your supper, and I don’t begrudge you any of it, to be completely honest.”

Madie grabbed the bottle and stuck it into her mouth, sucking hungrily at it. Sherlock had to laugh. “Oh, seems I’m not the only one who seems to be a bit peckish.” He stabbed a fork into the rocket and groaned. “Onions. I hate onions. I thought Angelo knew that... Ah, well, I’ll just...” He scowled and picked at the red onion bits. “...pick them out, I guess.”

“You could always ask for another,” Lizzy pointed out. Instead of scowling at her, as Sally feared, he actually smiled at her again.

“I could, but what would be the point? I do have other food on the way, and Angelo’s is busy tonight.”

Sally laughed as the twins shouted gleefully at her boss over the phone. “They’re a bit loud, aren’t they?”

“Huh, who?” Sally pointed at the children, and Sherlock nodded. “Oh. Them.” He smirked around a bite of his salad. “Yes, well, I have it on good authority that they don’t normally get sugar, thanks to my brother’s diet. So...”

“That’s what you’ve been giving them all day.” Sally smiled. “Good one. You are like my mother, then. She shoves candies and things at Lizzy all bloody day and then sends her home to me when she can’t keep up with her anymore.”

“Well, yes.” Sherlock snorted. “They did have a good lunch, and they behaved at school and the park and the morgue -”

“The morgue? You took them to the morgue?”

Sherlock looked shocked. “They stayed with Molly while I looked at the body from the McDonnegal case.” He almost winced. “Though Tierney tried to follow me. I think she will be like me when she grows up.”

“Well...” Sally shrugged. “I guess that isn’t too bad.” She shot a glare at him. “As long as you aren’t taking them in to see the bodies.”

“No, they would get their hands all over everything and it’d become a mess.” Sherlock grimaced. Sally groaned.

“Of course that would be your excuse.”

Sherlock couldn’t help but laugh and chew on his salad.

 

* * *

 

“You know, I wonder what my brother was even thinking when he had me, of all people, babysit his children. I have toxic mold cultures in the bread box and broken glass everywhere and things I can’t even identify anymore in the crisper, I’m a walking hazard right now since I haven’t slept in nearly four days, and these children are slightly hyperactive on a good day. I almost forgot Madalyn on the front stoop when we went to the park, for God’s sake! If it weren’t for Missus Hudson, I would have been halfway down the road in a cab before I would have remembered. Mycroft could have found someone else. Should have, even.”

Sally wasn’t sure what had happened, but after a rather interesting supper where Madie had burped up on Sherlock’s shirt and the twins had fallen asleep under the table after hanging up with Lestrade, they all ended up going back to Baker Street. Well, she’d insisted on carrying Tierney while Sherlock held Madalyn and Marcus, and Elisabeth had carried the diaper bag. There was no way that Sherlock would be able to handle all of them by himself, and with his scattered brain as it was...she’d insisted. And with a great deal of bluster and reluctance - and a bit of hidden relief - Sherlock had caved in.

After the detectives had laid the little ones down on the couch (“Not John’s bed, in case they have to get up for something or get scared, I don’t want them climbing down the stairs on their own, even John and I have problems on those things some days, and I don’t need to be murdered by your boss or my brother for letting one of their precious ones brain themselves on the stairs.”), Sherlock ran a bath for Madie. He now sat on a stool in front of the sparkling clean kitchen sink while the little girl splashed and squealed in the makeshift tub. Sally leaned up against the also clean table and listened to Sherlock’s rather uncharacteristic fit of inadequacy.

“I think you are doing a splendid job, actually. The flat is cleaner than normal, this kitchen is spotless. I’d put a kid here.” She sighed. “To be honest, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Sherlock cocked his head at her. “Really?” He nodded. “Logical, of course. What was your reasoning?”

“I don’t know, now.” She shrugged. “I thought you would experiment on them, or leave them in the street or something. Forget about them and leave them in Trafalgar Square. Paint them with mercury or bathe them in thermite and set them on fire. I don’t know!” She laughed at the absurdity of it, and sipped on the glass of whisky in her hand. Sherlock had mentioned something about a private stash, and pulled the bottle off the top shelf of the bookcase. It was dusty, and old, and oh so good. “Though I guess I was right about you forgetting about them, but I’ve known some first time parents who would do the same thing, because their brains are so focused on doing everything right that they forget the most important thing. Though, with you I thought it would be because you were focused on everything but the children. I’m glad to be proven wrong.”

Sherlock laughed with her, and got a mouthful of lavender soap bubbles for his troubles when Madalyn shoved her hand into his mouth. “Yuck. Thank you, but no thank you, Madie. You can chew on them all you want, but that was disgusting.” He pulled a face and wiped the bubbles off his tongue. “Ack.” Sally laughed even harder. “You are enjoying this way too much.” He looked over her shoulder. “Elisabeth has fallen asleep, it seems.”

Sally turned around. “That she has.” Her ten year old was passed out in John’s armchair. She pushed off the table, but Sherlock waved a hand at her.

“Keep an eye on Madie so she doesn’t become a soap bubble or a seal, I’ll do it.”

As Sally watched him and the infant at the same time, splitting her attention like only a mother can, he padded barefoot over to the chair. He pulled the knitted afghan off the headrest and draped it over her daughter, tucking the ends around her. He pulled the apiculture book out of her hands and shut it softly, tucking the book under his arm and walking back over to the sink. “There. That chair is stupidly comfortable, she’ll sleep for years in that old ratty thing.” He pressed his lips together as he set the book down on the table, and looked at Sally. “You don’t have to leave right away...if you don’t want to, of course. Lestrade should be over at eleven to collect the children, and contrary to most people’s beliefs, and formerly my own, you aren’t that horrid of company. On this point, I am very glad to be proven wrong.” He peered at her with a cocked head, almost as if he was trying to figure out why this was the case. “I could use another set of eyes to watch the offspring of my brother and his silver fox so that I can finish some key points in my write up of the last case.”  
  
Sally groaned. “If you ever call my boss a silver fox ever again, I might have to strangle you.”

Sherlock smirked as he pulled the wet child out of the sink and wrapped her in a towel. “But you agree with me.”

“I do, but that doesn’t matter.”

Sherlock chuckled. “See? I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

“Oh, my God, shut up.” Sally smacked him on the shoulder. “I’m taken!”

“By a jerk, if you are willing to come home with someone you despise to spend more time away from him. Obviously not Elisabeth’s father, he is long gone, circumstances unknown, so I will not speculate on it.” He lowered his head. “Besides, I am also...’taken’, as you put it. That won’t stop me from looking.”

She paused, shocked off her perch by not only the deduction - correct, as always - but the sudden admission. “Um, I don’t really despise you so much anymore, I think. But. You and John?”

“We are in a relationship now, yes. I guess. I think.” He flicked his eyes to the kettle. “Um...maybe.”

Sally sensed an interesting situation coming on, something she was good at. She drank the rest of the whisky and smiled conspiratorially, while pouring herself another and one for Sherlock. “Oh, come on. Out with it, now, Holmes.”

He shrugged a bit as he struggled to get Madalyn’s nappy on. The little girl kicked and cooed and gurgled at him. “He hasn’t really said anything...”

“But...” Sally prompted as he trailed off.

“He’s been...touching me.”

“Touching you? Oooooh, tell me more!” Sally snickered.

“Yes. No, not like that, mind out of the gutter, Sally.” He shook his head and hid his smile. “Completely innocently. My shoulder. My hair, sometimes we will be on the couch, and he’ll put his arm on the back of the couch and play with my hair. I’m not sure he realises he’s doing it, either. He gave me a shoulder rub the other day as well.” Sherlock shrugged again. “I don’t know. He’s straight, he keeps telling the world that he’s not gay, and he’s given no indication that he’s anything but straight. I could be reading it all wrong, hoping for something that isn’t there. I don’t understand.” He winced, as if the idea that he didn’t know something gave him physical pain. “If someone likes you, they touch you more, right? Little gestures, massages, things like that?”

Sally smiled. “You can spot these things in other people, but when they happen to you, you don’t get it.”

Sherlock only grunted. “Why are they happening to me, though?”

“You mean, why does John like you? You, of all people? Snarky, abrasive, dickish Sherlock Holmes?”

Without looking at her, Sherlock nodded.

“I don’t know. I think he’s nuts. But.” She held up a hand, in case he tried protesting. “But. I think it’s because you two fit together. You two are missing links that should go together, even if it’s completely platonically. Also, you’ve shown a side that I’ve never seen before. Maybe he’s seen this side and never realised it. Or maybe he has. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think too much about it. Just...tell him how you feel.”

“I don’t know how I feel, though! I don’t...do relationships. And I’m not like him, I don’t have sex. I’m not even interested in sex. I’m asexual.” He clasped the last snap on the onesie and picked the child up, cradling her and rocking unconsciously. “What if he wants to, you know...”

“But you like him, aesthetically?”

“Yes. He is a bit fit.”

Sally scoffed, which earned her a glare. “‘A bit fit’?”

“He is! You probably wouldn’t think so -”

“Sherlock.” Sally held up her hand again. “John Watson isn’t ‘a bit fit’.” Sherlock scowled at her. “He’s concentrated fit, shoved into a fit body and then glazed in fit.”

Sherlock cocked his head and grinned when he realised what she was getting at.

“Look up ‘fit’ in the dictionary, and you will find John’s photo. He was first in line when they were handing fit out, and he got it all. He’s _all the fit_.”

“I get your point.” He shook his head. “I’m just...I don’t want to have sex with him, but I do want to see him. I like his body, his scars, his hair...his laugh, his smile...everything. I like everything about him." He sighed. "I don’t know if he will understand, though.”

“I do hope he does, because now I’m starting to feel like an older sister, and I will clobber him if he hurts you, which I never actually thought I would _ever_ say.” She smiled up at him. “Ever.”

“I didn’t think I’d hear that out of you, either. It’s weird.” He scrunched his face into a mock disgusted moue. “Not sure if I like it yet.”

Sally laughed, and pushed the glass to him. “So you want me to stick around and help? You look exhausted. You sure you don’t want to have a lie-down first?”

“That would be splendid, and I’ll be fine.” He swept past her and laid the sleepy infant down in her play crib. “I just need a moment to think, is all. The telly is almost always on, thanks to John, and the remote is somewhere under the case files on the coffee table. Make yourself at home.”

 

* * *

 

“Thank you, Missus Hudson, I’ll let myself in - Oh.” Gregory Lestrade stopped, just inside the foyer, and took in the sight before him. Sally curled up in Sherlock’s black chair, her daughter sound asleep in John’s chair, the twins zonked on the couch, the baby cooing and kicking in the crib... and Sherlock face down on his laptop, hand still clutching a pen. The nib pressed into the printer paper at his hand, and when the inspector came a bit further into the room, he could see that the word Sherlock had passed out writing was “Watson”. Two glasses of John’s good whisky sat on a side table, nearly all finished.

He sighed happily, and set down his briefcase as softly as he could, then walked to the crib and pulled Madalyn out so he could rock her to sleep down in Missus Hudson’s flat. He really did not want to disturb that lovely tableu.

 


End file.
